While I don't hate the Lab as much as others, it does become rather tedious and I believe a fine balance would be make Normal and Cruel 1 room then Izario fight, Merciless be maybe a 1,1,2 then Uber the same length. Then in add a feature that albeit only affect SC players, but make it so there is a checkpoint system where after you beat one Izario fight that when you come back in you start from that checkpoint instead of from scratch. Of make it so that the first 3 don't have traps in the last Izario room fight.

Nice suggestions. If we add up few more;

- If someone die, start at check-point as described as in quote. However, remove 1 key per death something. After 3 times dead (or something similar according to total key numbers in run difficulty), remove enchantment feature at the end of lab. At the end most of players requesting change/balance because they are after Ascendancy point, so other rewards mean nothing for them.

Btw, Uber must remain same for lab farmers. They deserve some fun too.

Even after changes to make it less of a pain in the ass lab is still boring and annoying.

From a lore perspective, it is odd that to access prestige classes you don't do anything connected to the main game. Instead, you play a repetitious platform minigame that is identical for all prestige classes. That may be cost efficient. But, it's also lazy, uninspired, non-immersive design.

Critical skills for an emperor include military expertise, diplomacy, and judgment about justice / economy. Skill at running trap gauntlets is about as helpful for an emperor as race car driving skills are for a pediatrician.

I'm glad to come in and see that other people are just as over Lab as I am.

When I first came back to the game, I hated Lab, because I thought it was really hard. Once I got the hang of Lab, I realized two things.

1) Learn how to properly move, and there are VERY few traps / saws / posts / explodey things that are actually hard to deal with.

2) the mechanics surrounding the Lab are just... Boring, and not fun. Needing to continue to run trials so that you can continue to grind for head enchants, in a vain effort to actually get the head enchant you want is just not efficient in leagues, and the only time that it matters is Standard, but GGG is doing it's best to make Standard a Dumpster Fire that they don't want people to play.

Someone suggested making the Lab Enchants craftable. That'd be neat. If you run the lab, and get a head enchant, it's now learned, and counts as something that you can craft from the bench seems like an awesome idea on the start, but it REALLY isn't going to matter much, as there are so many head enchants, with more being added each time, it's just not worth it to learn them. Short of getting a few specific head enchants, you aren't even going to be able to trade the crafting services to get people to care.

With all the work that has been done to make the Atlas feel interesting each new league (at the expense of Standard League), you would think that at some point, they would do something with Lab.

Personally? I'd love it if Lab were 3-5 rooms, and then the entire Izaro fight at once. People aren't running Lab because it's fun. They're running it because it's FORCED.

Couple that with the idea that it's forced hardcore style content on non hardcore players, and it's just a bizarre enigma stuck in the game. Since I wasn't playing the game when Lab was released, was there more Lore about why the Lab exists, or why Izaro is this thing, that matters?

I like the idea of the ascendency "classes", and the idea of further customization. I like the idea of the enchants. I'm just tired of running Lab. I have two options.

Speed Run, and not bother really killing / looting / bothering, and ZERO amount of "only drops here gear" would get me to deviate from this, because I'm going for Enchants, because I don't have the time to full clear it.

Somehow, block out a larger amount of time, where I'm not going to be disturbed by family, and also be ok with not being able to trade with anyone, so that I can go around and look for more treasure keys, more loot, and do close to a full clear.

I guess, the TLDR would be: Lab as forced content, and in it's current iteration is just another thing forced on the player (especially while leveling), that isn't actually fun to run.

signonthe and shoju, thank you for voicing your opinions on the boring and not fun labyrinth in the loved game PoE. I've added your names to players voicing similar opinions to the list now at 1021 names long. That includes 125 or 126 names from just this thread alone! As the list grows longer our voice grows stronger. Over 410 threads discussing labyrinth problems with over 1020 posters in support

Have an opinion on labyrinth but never voiced it? Make a post in Feedback and Suggestions. I'll keep track. Over 410 threads discussing labyrinth problems with over 1020 posters in support (thread # 1702621)